Touching a camera for the first time in three months

It’s been a rough few months, but if you’ve been reading my blog for any time now, you know that I’m currently on the mend from a broken ankle.  Little by little, I’m getting my life back together.

And over the past couple of days … I’ve picked up my Nikon Df camera and shot pictures again.

For the first time in three months, yet.

Background.

Before my ankle injury, I was testing out a new-to-me Laowa macro lens, that I hoped would help me capture some awesome snowflakes.  But then came a few months of inactivity, and the snowflakes came and went.  😦

Last Sunday, I hooked up the Df to a special focus-stacking tripod mount, and re-created my macro photo of one of my vintage Civil War coins. I took a few pictures in various forms of focus, and then stacked them in PhotoShop to get a consistently sharp image throughout the coin’s surface – all the pits and marks and whatnot.

This is what came out.

Good.  I can still do this.

Yesterday, on my way home from the day job, I stopped at a Stewart’s and bought some fruit.  A couple of apples, a couple of oranges.  Nice little breakfast food for tomorrow.

At around midnight last night, my sleep-induced subconscious whispered to me.  “Get up, Miller.  Get up and take a picture.”

“No,” I mumbled.  “Ankle hurts.”

“Fuck your ankle,” my subconscious snarled.

Damn.  I’ve got a subconscious with a potty mouth.

“Stop using your broken ankle as an excuse.  Nobody cares.  Hobble into your photo room and take a picture of something.  Anything.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now.  Do it or I’ll make you oversleep tomorrow.  And don’t think I won’t.”

Okay, okay … may as well make a midnight snack out of those oranges and apples … that’ll shut up my subconscious.

And within ten minutes, I went from “making a midnight snack” to putting one of the oranges on my photo table, and carefully focusing my camera lens onto the orange’s spoked navel.

Seven pictures in varying forms of focus.

And then … let’s get an image out of this.

Holy Anita Bryant, Batman … that Laowa lens pulled THAT image?

I grabbed another orange and placed it on the photo table.  Let’s see what else I can pull from this project.

This is how sleep-deprived I was.  I couldn’t get any of my flash gear to work, my ring flash wasn’t cooperating – so I lit the scene with the flashlight from my cell phone.  Necessity is the mother of invention, I guess…

If seven stacked images can get that orange photo up there, what can eighteen images pull into a focus stack?

That’s some serious Vitamin C there.

Okay, that takes care of the oranges.  Can’t sleep now.  Where’s that apple?

I put the apple on the photo table – it rolled off.  Of course it did, the stupid photographer forgot to pull the stem off the apple.

One de-stemmed apple later … I got this.

Holy Johnny Appleseed, Batman … this is getting good.

I have one more apple here … let’s give it a de-stemming and see what comes out of it.  Hopefully not a worm.

Not bad for photographing in the wee wee hours.

So if nothing else, I’ve been able to take pictures again.  And if this focus stack thingy actually works – and by “works,” I mean better than last year – I could have something comparable to last year’s award-winner After the Rain, which was a focus stacked project.

In other words, I want to get better at this.

And it’s been too long between photos.

Besides, I’ve still got a bit of the munchies.

And it’s a shame to let good fruit go to waste.  😀